Models of democracy and respect for human rights
- There is no indication currently that people will soon (or ever?) be consulted on budget levels for health or indeed on the choice of economic policies [which may even violate (or have already violated) their rights].
- Actually, there are strong indications that the same coercion that was applied to implement Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPs) will be applied for Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) –through the imposition of various conditionalities, for example, or through –against all odds– pushing actions that will make the statistics of MDGs look good with no sustainability left behind.
- This begs the following not-so-rhetorical questions:
- a) Can a donor nation consider itself democratic if it consistently undermines democracy in other countries?, and
- b) Is a meaningful debate on democracy even possible when wealth and power are concentrated in so few hands?
- We are not alone in saying that there is a crisis in democracy today. The louder our leaders proclaim their attachment to its principles the more loosely they use the term. Behind the scenes, many of them violate its most fundamental principles with increasing impunity. At the same time, human rights are grossly violated by the same forces that are undermining democracy.
- This has led some to speak of ‘low intensity democracy’, i.e., of participation at the ballot box by a minority of the population…and of the USA having just one party: ‘the business party’…with two factions. (Noam Chomsky)
- No matter how we look at it, there is gross interference by the powerful nations in the democratic processes of developing countries. In particular, the case of the USA is well documented. As Arundhati Roy said: “every kind of outrage is being committed in the name of democracy “.
- It has become obvious that Capitalism ha mastered the techniques of infiltrating the instruments of democracy –i.e., the ‘independent’ judiciary, the ‘free’ press, parliament– moulding them to its ultimate purposes. Free elections, a free press and an independent judiciary mean little when the free market has reduced them to commodities available on sale to the highest bidder. A wide repertoire of devices is used to subordinate developing countries’ economies; many think the WTO is one such device.
- Will we ever learn that people can NOT be forced to be democratic? Democracy must have a social basis in which it can arise, be nurtured and sustained. Only such a real grassroots democracy in poor countries can lead to the defeat of client regimes installed to serve powerful nations’ economic interests.
- Do we need to remind the reader that, for instance, a handful of corporations dominate the world’s media and communications? In 2001, ten of them controlled most of what we heard, read and saw. Yes, we do live in an information age. But we actually live in a media age in which information is limited by boundaries cleverly made invisible. How often do we see the media denouncing the everyday violation of human rights? The bottom line is that private corporations do not exert undue influence on the media. They are the media.
- Money rules in a world in which everything is a commodity. [A reminder of contrasts helps here: Ford Motor Company is roughly equivalent to the economic size of Norway; Mitsui is worth slightly more than Saudi Arabia].
30 So, in terms of models of democracy, the assumption that the powerful nations responsible for today’s world order are models of democracy and of respect for human rights is pure propaganda. Democracy is in crisis everywhere. But the myths about this thrive –precisely because they are rarely subjected to scrutiny.
- In such a context, it is no surprise that the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978 threatened the status quo. So it was politically sanitized and reduced to a few technological interventions that pushed primary health care back to the era of providing for basic human needs.
This notwithstanding, we contend that the only progress possible in public health today (and in the fight against AIDS) is a return to the wisdom of Alma Ata.
Wishful thinking, ideology and untruths
- Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), most ‘explicitly political positions’ promoted in the Sachs Report are presented as neutral and as established facts. Only a fine line divides the Report’s ideology from untruth: There are dozens of examples of ideology disguised as fact.
- The pharmaceutical industry’s profit margins (over 18% compared to around 7% on average in other industries) are justified as a need for them to carry-on with Research and Development of new products. But R&D costs are far lower than the amounts devoted to the marketing of pharmaceutical products –27% versus 11%. Things like these
receive, if at all, uncritical mention in the Report.
- Another example is the mention of the debt crisis as a constraint to health. What remains unsaid though is that the more explicit purpose of the debt reduction initiatives on the table these days is to make the debt ‘sustainable’ and, in the process, protect the financial integrity of the IFIs.
(contd)
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City